I think I am

The other day I sat back to introspect and introspect really hard........

To come up with a few things I feel about myself:

1) I am an Assistant Manager with Inductis Consulting a division of EXL....rofl
2)And am a fine person if it comes to peer to peer skills and I love technology.
3) I love to crack my head and come out with pieces of programming which are algorithmically awesome.
4)I think am stupid with respect to somethings and intelligent with respect to others.
5)So here goes the list of the stupid things:

a) Am still relationship phobic after my experience of trusting one person once in life.
In short I don't trust men still but that does not mean I ll be a suspicious wife! Yeah would try to keep less expectations.

b)Am too straight forward.Not realizing what the other person feels I say so.But with this con comes a pro.I never speak bad at the back.

c)I am least expressive about my wants to people around.I either expect them to understand or try to meet my expectations myself.

d)Bad thing people very close feel bad when I don't express!!!! But the best of them have always tried to understand me and love me the way I am.

e) End of stupid things about me.I have loads of friends.Friends who really care are handful.But they are ones I can call up at 3am and cry to.Even call up at wee hours to express happiness as well.

f)I believe that man is gregarious.We need to abide by social norms.That brings in me some conventionalism despite the fact that I appreciate the openness and modernity a lot.I believe in balance.

g)For me Home is where Heart Is.No matter how much ever professional success I gain, I cannot gain it by being unhappy on the personal front at all.I have faced situations like that!!!! That made me realize what I am. So I need peace at home first all the time.......

h)I want to be perfect.I don't aim much in the material aspect of life.I know whatever little I need I ll earn it myself.So I just want to be perfect in my own little world.

i)I believe in clarity.I like people who are clear in their mind and heart.And those whose actions define their intentions.

j)I hate people who promise and leave it at that.I hate those raise hopes in the minds of some and leave them hopeless later.I believe in complete sync of action and words.I believe in honesty and I believe in truth.I know am honest to the core!

k) I feel I am that person next door who wants to live life simple.Have simple needs and desires.Tour the world,know new people, good people.....Have friends and have enough money to meet the basic comforts of life.

l)I am ambitious to an extent to being perfect in whatever I do.I don't aim for the impossible in the given situation.Too much desire brings misery is what I feel.

m)I have trusted wrong people and wanted them in different phases of my life.And I guess in situations like these I have been cared for by people I least expected them to.They are the ones I love the most now.

n)I believe in destiny but I believe in trying to shaping destiny to achieve my want.I ll always work hard towards what I want and leave the rest on the Power to decide.

o)I believe in god.Not his shape.Thats why I pray with equal humility in all the places of prayer from mandirs to masjids to gurudwarsa.

p)I love children and old people.Coz' I believe Innocence is Bliss all the time.I love their company better than complicated discussions at time.But yes,in such discussions I am usually a valued contributor too.

q)I love listening to stories and experiences and I love music which sounds good to my ears.

r)Ending with my clandestine dream.I would have loved to be in front of the camera maybe as conversationalist or a country singer! That ll come with my reincarnation I believe!


Love,
Tithi.

Amar.......

All set in a mood to read and write since early morning today I wrote three blog pieces and they are yet to be posted.Finally I could not resist writing something on Amar when I saw him smiling at me when I offered him biscuits early this morning.

Amar, his smile refreshes my mind each time I look at him when I am back from office.Maybe a bad day working on my usual client deliverables is forgotten the moment he comes to see me!And when I wake up each morning and see him with the infectious curve on his face before I leave for the gym it is like "he made my day".

Wait.......Amar is not my boyfriend or fiance nor is he my adopted son! Just another little boy from Nepal working in the north.......Every year probably lakhs of immigrants come from Nepal and Bangladesh in search of employment in India.Nepal sees the immigrants working in the north mostly as domestic helps and Bangladeshis get employed in the east.And there are children amongst them to tell their story......

Amar turned 14 yesterday.He remembers his birthday and can read the calender.A little of English too........here and there!He believes he has no birthdays no celebrations no rights to the normal happiness a child is entitled to. His birthday also began at 4 am like any other day of the year.How do I know? Early morning note of the utensils when he starts washing them.Probably his age we never used to wake up on an examination day to revise.....That too when the mercury is dipping at a low of 7-8 degrees in Delhi.The older domestic helps are snoring at that time.......

The kid is the eldest of the family.He has younger ones whom he wants to be like us, he says.......He earns and saves for them.If you listen to his worries it ll sound like he is much older than 14 and his siblings are his kids.His vexations span from his siblings not studying to his savings for his family........and "To be continued"..................

Travelogue

They say – “When u expect the least out of something somehow someone up there ensures you get the best”. Expectations and results of it have always fit into ironical frames for me. So “Sidhe point pein aaonaa”.I am really making most out of my life when I reckoned with my usually erroneous crystal gazing that this time my life would be work, fast bucks and work and Whew…….

Well my first travel tryst worth a remembrance was the suddenly planned drive to Agra. The actual plan was to go to Fatehpur Sikri but somehow the picturesque beauty of Taj in our minds subjugated the real plan and we changed our minds on our way. It is going to be Agra first and then if time permits we would go by our usual plan of Fatehpur Sikri as well. We had two cars and 8 people. Comfortable and easy to fit in all the travel enthusiasts. This was the first time I was traveling in the north as in with a bunch of friends. My experience on trying roadside dhaba food has always been amazing to narrate. Each time I had a newer version and a more desirous palate to try something new. We started early morning and reached the Delhi –Meerut highway at around 11am.We all were badly wanting some food after the hilarious trials on our vocal chords during the drive.

So came the dhaba and they serve Parathas. Any kind any stuffing name it and it is on your platter. Well sea food lovers like me will not get prawn parathas here please. Aloo, gobhi, pyaaz, paneer, cheese anything and a huge glass of lassi. So we ordered a mix-“Let us taste all of it”. One each type and so they arrived. Royal they looked on the plates with the “Desi “butter melting on it daintily. In a spick of a second I forgot my daily gym routines and how my instructor has apparently warned me away from such tempting embellishments for the platter , mind and palate simultaneously.”Koi gal nee puttar”, said Manish winking (Manish is my childhood buddy).

Usually my eating habits as a Bengali has taught me that we eat some form of cooked vegetable with bread of any form. But aghast and alas. How do we eat these parathas? The answer is – Extra Butter .So came cubes of butter again. And lastly we quenched our thirsts for a second trial on our chords with a glassful of lassi. With our stomachs completely glutted we restarted our journey towards Agra. The roads were fine as we tested our vocal cords for any sort of bearable melody and tune. Well I really don’t know how melodious it sounded to our ears but yes, the trials were hilarious so was the laughter that trailed behind.

Huh…..We finally reached Agra. The town has many beautiful gardens. Though we did not have time to visit them which of course prompts us to have a second trip but they all seemed beautiful as we passed by them. Finally, we reached our destination.”The Taj Mahal”. Outside any famous monument in India, we find fake travel guides who apparently walk all of us through the history of the building. Well they cannot target us for all the easy bucks but for the foreigners it is easy. They are already mused by our culture and the architecture and it is easy to extract 600 INR for a narration which may not be completely authentic as well. I saw a white paying a guy some odd 500 rupees for what I don’t know! After parking our vehicles in the parking lot we had two options, either walk or take a carrier to the tomb. We chose the latter. A camel carrier J Manish ran to sit on its tail and it smelt awesome: -) What about the WOW(Women on Wheels). We chose seats which smelt less of the camel though there was no such space completely devoid of it. The experience was like that of a shacky dilapidated caravan slowly moving towards it destination with awesome fragrance of camel dung and the malodorous curtains hanging behind. Still I call everything an experience good or bad. At least it helps us opine which is a major part of triggering our grey hormones at the top. So we finally reached after our tryst with dilapidation and odor at its best.

I was impatient to see The White Beauty. I had heard a lot from my grandmother, mother, father and a trail of people who have been here. As I appeared the slit as physics would call it. I mean the entrance I had my natal glimpse of the beauty carved out of white stone. The closer I walked smaller it seemed and the farther I moved the larger it seemed. Well, law of optics and physics reminisced well in front of a historical legend. So I finally saw it. If I can pen down my feelings which are usually at its crest ,I would say I was mesmerized to see a white carvature standing tall beneath the clear blue sky. History says it took 22 long years to build this epitome of love- a prefect edifice signifying that eternal love existing beyond the realms of life and death or u can say mere existence. Perfectly shaped, it felt like I am standing in front of an acme of human talent in architecture.”Beauty at its best”

One of my friends blurted –“You are feeling so because it is the first time and you are still a kilometer away from the building. The government has not maintained it well.” True it sounded as I approached the building .It struck me that if our government had taken steps to maintain it how it would have looked. All the more enchantingly and divinely beautiful and magnificent more than what it is now.”Try on some anti wrinkle cream” like our silver screen queens of the olden and golden era. ROFL J. We were supposed to remove our shoes before we entered the tomb. The marble floor was really hot due and we turned around to see people tying polybags on their after they removed their shoes. Where to get them? They are sold outside which we were unaware off as we all were first timers in Agra. We ended up walking on the floor bare foot and finally reached the interior. We saw that the government has created a facsimile of the actual tomb on the top on order to avoid any crowd rushing underground where the Mumtaz actually rests .

I could not avoid the usual scripts on the walls of Indian monuments – “Pooja I love u –Ramesh” with a huge heart sign scribed beside. The bigger the heart seemingly more the ishq.My friend was right in saying that the closer you come to the building the lesser beautiful it seems.After our tryst with the wonder of the world we decided we should visit Fatehpur Sikri as well. However we had some die hard beer lovers with us who would move a step without the can and that’s when we were inspired to plan a next trip to Fatehpur Sikri. Our trip ended with a sumptuous lunch comprising Hyderbadi Biriyani, raita, parathas, aloo Dum etcetera with beers and breezers.

On our way back we did not forget to pick up some really nice Pethas for which Agra is famous for, besides the Taj and the Lunatic Asylum.:-)We missed the latter one purposefully guessing one of us might end there sometime in life. That way others will visit at least once.

Ciao

Virtual World

Welcome to the virtual of friends on network.Started tweeting.....and something s rocking the grey pipelines within my head to write......Probably coz am again a lil free on my work front.Wait o'er weekend......

Somethingz coming up on our pseudo new age relationships :-)

Ciao!

Tales in Transit

Multitude of places for innumerable reasons all in trains or buses , autos or just treading the way!Having ridden on the public modes of transport in almost all the major towns and cities, I was sitting over to ponder how different my experiences have been.

Spearheading my first encounter with the bad bad world outside home was Kolkata.Local Trains of Bengal don't stop for normal homo sapiens who are used to behave like men, our age.Neanderthals indeed can board such caravans of the industrial eras.

Once I had to drop Deo at her friend's home at a place called Bardhamaan.Early morning Ma,Deo and me took a train to the destination, called the Black Diamond......6:00 am early morning trains are super cool.No one boards, except for people like us.Used to living life at our own pace, not the world's!However the tryst with our self-defined normality of speed was not to last long courtesy our return journey.

Completely unaware of the the rules of boarding a local train that too at office hours, we stood relaxed at the station.Ma had to grab a little space to sit considering her long term companionship with arthritis.As the time drew closer for the trains to arrive, it seemed like people were gushing in from all corners of the place. We were surrounded by people my hands could count and finally I lost the number which I'd quote as 10 to the power n......Actually the local trains of Bengal see many workers and employees travelling regularly to Kolkata.

God save us from the what is called The Human Density of Bengal.And a homogeneous blend of biological and thermodynamical processes made our journey more direful.Every one around sweating......Imagine the smell of sweat, food from tiffins , hairoil all forming a mix......And you squeezed somewhere in between with your lungs and guts almost thrown out of your body.

Since I was more worried about Ma getting a place to sit ,a very weird system caught my attention each time a train arrived......Stand near the windows of each train.Throw your handkerchief, mufflers etc etc the moment the train stops to block your seat and then once you enter, after the mob clears out from the gate claim your place.Thats why I believe Bongs are Intels indeed...... :-p Shortcuts to success.......Usurp the throne with a mere wiper tool of daily life.......Lol!

I finally managed to grab a seat for us by throwing my jhola through the window and asking a regular passenger to do the act of blocking a seat for me.It was the fourth train, missing a hat trick in a row though!

I would never say that all my experiences on Bengal trains have been bad.Especially the ones, I used to board from Haldia back in my graduation days.The journey would start with Chops and other plethora of fried food available.....Name it and you get it.....Mochaar Chop to Hingche to what not!Train could be the easiest vent to the call of ghrelin and leptin......HUNGER and satisfy our palates too.

My second rendezvous with the caravans on tracks was in Chennai.I had to catch a train from Pallavaram to Guindy or may be viceversa.I can't reminsce.......The one thing which mused me was not the flocking crowd or the discomfort coz there was'nt any:-) but for the yellow faces of the rural ladies who boarded the train.I traveled mostly in the suburbs of Chennai that too not in peak hours, so encounter with the mobs did not come into picture.Call it destiny, I always have one or more Tamil pals in my life which even continues, here at Delhi.So most of my cultural queries get a convincing answer then and there."Turmeric is considered divinely for skin, down south".....and that drives the suburban women to the yellowed faces.......

Here comes my third encounter, this time with the Lionized Train Services Of India.Welcome to the tinsel town where the bourgeois travels by local trains called the lifelines! My stay in Nasik for the past two years encouraged me to meet some of my best buddies in Mumbai and of course roadside shopaholism was another reason.These were the sources of inspiration behind boarding the dreaded trains! Else who takes the risk.....

Boarding from the almost the first station that is Kasara close to Nasik never made me realize that I am on a general boogie not the ladies.This usually happened when I traveled alone...... :-) As Mumbai drew closer, I would realize what a blunder I did!People have their boogies and seats fixed in Mumbai locals.Fellow passengers traveling together daily form a group conversing with each other about there everyday lives. And they have an empathetic relationship when it comes to sharing seats.I started my journey relaxing with a lot of a space finally long before Dadar I found myself squeezed to a corner near the window.And you have get up from your seat to reach the exit one station prior! Else either you miss the station intended or simply change your destination.The best would be stand up ahead a few who are about to get down.You will anyways be pushed outside effortlessly.

Another attrahent of the Mumbai Locals Ladies' Compartment is definitely the accessories ranging from earrings to studs, sold by suburban vendors.Everything for just a tenner.If you have patience to dig into the basket you might end up finding stuffs sold for four times in the Mumbai markets.

I would never forget my encounter with the Machiwalaas and Dabbawallahs at the Dadar Station after getting down the train.There is a weird tone of asking people to move and give way to them."Choo Choo" or something if I am not wrong.Initially it surprised me because I always presume any such activity as eve teasing.But when I found them doing it all the way through the crowd I was quite amused with this novel way of addressing people.Novel to may be just me!

But amidst all the chaos and the toughest of survival strategies, I fell in love with the warmth of Mumbai, somewhere I find a subtle resemblance with Kolkata except for its heart rending pace.The best part is the city sleeps less and when it wakes up it is full of life again.Sounding the morning siren with the flooded locals everyday :-)

In my rule book of vagabondism, where new experiences and people is just another ritual of life, Delhi has added some colorful pages.It is just three weeks here.Not exactly Delhi is where I stay though.My breezy flat on the highest floor of the apartment seems to be the only solace of staying in the deserted maze of malls called Gurgaon.And indeed Delhi metro is a pleasant sigh of relief providing an escape route from this place.

Welcome to the what we can phrase as the Delhi Locals seemingly a modern day version of the usual ones ;-) Again I usually avoid travelling during peak office hours.So there is no smell of sweat and hair oil in here pushing our guts out in disgustion.Everybody seems well dressed.Delhi I have heard, is a city of eye turners and neck twisters.Everybody tries to look good with layers of Revlon and Lakme on their faces.The womens' coach greets you in all in pink.And the synthetic advantage of looking good is men leering through the division of the womens' and general coach.Almost everyone facing the womens' coach.Oh my my..........Some men won't stop ogling at you from their seats.Upar *****Stop Beechmein****** Niche......and again.

Look back at them with a stern and Lol :-) Aaankein niche yaa kahin bagal waale ko dekho ab.....

This kind of lasciviousness exists in all cities but Delhi has learnt to fake eliteness with its monetary inheritance.You gotta be some kinda posh dude with the unprivileged treasure earned......Style feigned at its best I must say.Though one can always distinguish between the recently rich and the classy.

Women here probably are empathetic towards each other which comes maybe because we know the men here are tough to deal.I have seen young ladies giving away their seats to the older ones.Not once but many times.Impressive it was and inspiring too.......Lazy me.

Once off the metro late at night you need to run run run as fast as you can. Huh......To find a safer place.And here comes my final tale in transit, before I reach home.This time the fascinating Tum Tum -Ten seaters of Gurgaon.

The driver would drive the vehicle to the tunes of "Sarkailo Khatiya Jaara Lagein" and the likes.Noone would believe the vehicle turns to and fro with the crests and troughs of the song.Wow what an elevated experience of a disc!It indeed increases my heart beat alongside refreshing my childhood memories when Ma won't allow us to listen to the 90s Bollywood numbers fearing we'd get spoilt and how we would listen to it stealthily when she won't be home.

And finally comes a sigh of relief when you see your apartment shining through the jungle(almost one) from the Tum Tum.I am safe and I am not picked.......

Amidst my excitement to mention my experiencs in all the metros of the country I cannot forget my all time favorite city, Bangalore, Bangy it is :-) Don't have much of a public transport experience maybe coz' it was always Anitha's bike and for the rest I'd manage by - "Kannada Gotilla" in the public buses.......or get duped by the autowallahs paying 80 bucks and 20 bucks for the same route up and down.

Well, yeah have a sweet little story to narrate that happened in the pink womens' buses in Majestic.Royal they felt like when they were first launched three four years back......As I would mostly wait for the ladies' palanquin to reach BTM layout from Majestic, I saw a very old lady boarding the bus unaware it was just meant for women.So her husband followed too.The lady so delighted with the comfort placed herself in the front seat with her husband sitting beside her till the time the conductor objected the male presence.The lady refused to leave the comfort and the husband refused to leave her! The wife was in constant denial and the husband won't leave.An extremely sweet romantic tale.Might have reminded him of his days of wooing and then, bowling her over.

Finally the conductor allowed him, seeing an octogenarian unwilling to leave his wife,also probably because they had to travel just two three stops from Majestic.

So, I come to an end of what I wanted to write for a long time.Ciao.....

AuRevoir! :-) :-)

Over Panphobia and All Smiles :-)

Delhi, I was so scared about it.Maybe the first time I left home way back in 2006 to join work in Wipro I was'nt so captured by the awe of the unknown, as this time.If I have to enumerate all the sundry reasons for it, it would take a lifetime of brain propelling.

I have felt differently in various phases of my life.We all have grown with each and every experience of our lives.Here it is, the reason behind feeling differently each time we face similar situations in life.It has always been the same way with me.History repeats for me every time,I have to do my Columbus bit.The last time I went to Bangalore I was the only girl recruited.Again it is the same.Am I a Femme Fantastique for interviewers.Because it seemingly vitiates my mindset prior to joining.Reason: I have to make new friends and flat mates.(Sometimes you need feminine company beside the usual male ones too) So it is new all over again.

I discover, am Panphobic.....and I am!

But Delhi, as of now did not disappoint me at all.All and sundry reasons for it could be my childhood in Lucknow.And an innate love for the Hindi land.I cannot forget my days of culture shock in the first year of my engineering at Haldia even though am a Bong by birth.

Delhi, the city has it all to be the capital of the country.Amazing roads, trees all around and a simple drive by the Parliament and the Supreme Court to the India Gate is a great experience.Will not ever compare it to the warmth of Mumbai or for that matter the city of joy Calcutta but it certainly dives into what we can easily phrase as the aura of the capital city.

Landing from Varanasi to the Delhi airport.The new terminal brings India to the center stage of all Third World countries.Probably a lot of Kalmadism defamed our country during the Commonwealth games.But we can never deny that amidst all the chaos, there have been some conspicuous changes for the good.T3 terminal is swanky indeed.The magnificence of the building and not to mention the newly built escalators.I felt like a princess.I did not have to walk with my baggage.I just slipped along.Wow!World Class Arrangements indeed!

Then comes my experience at the Office Guest House.Ess Kay Villa.How is it for a middle class girl from a small town nobody knows, 200 km away from Varanasi, to see astounding arrangements there also.I have never seen a bath tub all my life.Roftl!

And our middle class outlook towards life never changes how much ever we currency we mint in our lives.It showed when I along with the rest of the fellow employees ordered food as much as we could.IT WAS FREE.Chicken it was all day.FREE for a week though.

And here I end up in a well furnished topmost floor of a flat nearby overlooking all the sky scrapers here and the women here are nice.I believe I was standing with an armor shield protecting myself from the unknown.Instead delving too much into xenophobism.Lots of photos are inline.A weekend party is on with my pretty flat mates.And still waiting to see eye turners and twisters of Delhi.Delhi crowd as they say is the most happening.All in Columbus mood here.

I feel we have to sometimes feel good about everything happening with us good or bad, instead of being judgmental perhaps!Ciao.........

Me te Amo Zukerberg........

All Fools' Day

Hey all you fools out there...........Happy All Fool's day!

We all have been stupids in some way or the other but a few of us are fools too :-p So a usual thesaurus might make them sound synonymous but there is a thin line of difference between these two words.

Which is,Stupidity is the lack of knowledge or Ignorance

And Foolishness is the Act of letting your stupidity out of your bag of clandestinity.

So as the World celebrates the ALL FOOLS' DAY

A few of us can also celebrate the ALL STUPIDS' DAY

Might turn onto a Incommunicado for a while as am all set to be on job after two long years.And and Delhi it is, the only unexplored city in the country in a decade of my vagabondism.Looking forward to my usual trysts with new people and a new job.Love my blog!Ending with a random thought: Manhood and Cowardice are not synonymous.Ciao buddies! :-) next live from the Capital of the country!